Fish skinning machines are old in the art and one of the principal disadvantages has been the tendency for the fish to drop down into the space between the discharge end of the feed conveyor and the feed roll and so not be carried forward by the feed roll into the nip between the feed roll and the pinch roll and drawn thereby into engagement with the cutting knife. Such expediences as have been designed to prevent this have not so far been especially successful. Another problem has been to make sure that the cutting knife be brought into engagement with the fish at the proper point to effect separation of the skin from the flesh without waste for whatever length fish are being handled without having to make mechanical adjustments. Still another problem has arisen from the fact that the cutting knife is reciprocal and the reciprocal movement of the knife shaft through its supporting bearings produces a pumping action which pumps the oil out of the gear cases and pumps water into them. Still another disadvantage of prior machines resides in the fact that the cutting knife must be manually adjusted to take up for wear and, finally, in such machines as are known, the feed conveyor is part of the main frame of the machine, requiring that the machine be disassembled to a considerable extent to enable repairing or adjusting the conveyor. It is the purpose of this invention to provide a fish skinning machine so designed as to eliminate the aforesaid disadvantages and, by such elimination, to provide an efficiently operating, easy to repair machine.